My nephew, Spencer, turned six Tuesday. During the call I made to wish him a happy one, I asked, “What’s on your agenda for this big day?”

He paused, as if checking the young boy’s equivalent of a Blackberry. “Mostly play,” he cherubbed before launching into an excited stream-of-thought on his impressive stable of Bionicles.

That brings me to Richard Florida, and his book The Rise of the Creative Class, which I’ve chewed on for a few weeks.

As I consider my career path, I look at goals:

1. “Cool” place to live
2. Proximity to family

3. Ability to shape the way I work
4. Opportunity to grow

5. Nearness to a feasible graduate university (long-term)

Florida calls many of these things emblematic of the creative class.

To that list, I’d also add a career that is “mostly play.” Or, perhaps having self-direction and chances to learn makes work seem like a bike ride, or a carpet war waged with Bionicles.

I’ll have more on Florida, I think, in later posts. Oh, and Tuesday this column also rounded out a calendar year, its first.

I just clicked “Send” with the most satisfaction of my professional life - answering a request for final comments to the Freedom Forum on the two-year fellowship that ends tomorrow.

Next step: Who knows?

Jonathan Glater at the NYT (or what we call around my newsroom “the Mothership”) lays out the issues surrounding the Apple preliminary ruling. Deep down, he touches on the trouble with a “functional” definition of journalist. If you have to define it, who decides the criteria? Who administers and enforces those criteria?

I recall discussions of professional licensing in college, and remember thinking how obtuse that notion sounded. Then, on the cusp of today’s spiraling, chaotic global media, it seemed quaint to argue that we should all tote little cards stamped JOURNALIST.

Global media now includes reactionary commentary framed as reporting, federal and state governments using faux newscast segments to pass policy messages through local TV, and right- and left-wing bloggers. Each of these contends with financial pressures as advertising pies get sliced atom-thin. So where does that leave journalism?

Not in a positive place. Still, the prognosis isn’t all bad.

We don’t need further defining of “journalist,” only a frank discussion about what journalism is. Those who get information to make decisions from poorly sourced, surface feeders, only get part of the story. Citizens who seek out information that is researched, sourced, reviewed and fairly expressed know the quality of that information, regardless of the writer’s political bent.

How can journalism effectively disassociate itself from below-the-belt partisanship? How can good, honest journalists let readers or viewers know that, hey, we don’t even know who invited these jerks to the party?

I’m open to suggestions. I know the dedication to fairness and accuracy I strive for, and recognize the absence of that dedication in more bloggers than not. But it’s not just bloggers; I see plenty of bad journalism, regardless of medium.

Bloggers take heed: The BBC is reporting on a California judge’s ruling that bloggers do not enjoy the same legal protections as journalists.

“The preliminary ruling could be far-reaching for bloggers who disclose information about companies in the future,” the report says. In particular, this ruling hits the site Think Secret, et. al, which published insider information early this year regarding Apple computer products before market. (The products, I believe, were the iPod Shuffle and the Mac Mini.) The Web sites had Electronic Frontier Foundation lawyers representing them, who argued that “online reporters’ confidential sources and unpublished material are protected by both the reporter’s shield in the California constitution and the reporter’s privilege under the federal First Amendment.”

They lost - at least in this preliminary hearing.

I’m no lawyer, but I imagine this doesn’t bode well - case law-wise - for amateurs writing for the Web. It doesn’t even bode well for professionals, like myself, who write as amateurs in their spare time.

Still, I’m pleased to see the beginnings of legal precedent for blogging.

(Disclaimer: I’m a huge fan of Apple products and, obviously, a blogger. )

Human endeavor should bear the hallmarks of humility. It’s okay to laugh at ourselves.

And no one plays the straight-faced man like Rob Corddry.

I’ve been amused to see the blog chamber whip Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, over his suggestion that the government should also apply indecency standards to paid-and-delivered content such as cable TV. Like many, I think the suggestion rings ludicrous.

The main reason: There’s a transaction going on. I pay for cable, ergo I want to see what I paid for. If nudity on HBO offends me, and I’ve paid for it, then shame on me.

Stevens’ illogic, in lock step with supporter Sen. Joe Barton, R-Texas, completely ignores that, and would chill expression in the process.

But, cynically, I think they’re both window dressing - playing politics.

Buzzmachine points out that Clear Channel is one of Barton’s biggest contributors. Obviously, that broadcast radio outfit might profit if their paid-content buddies were taken down a notch. However, buzzmachine leaves out an important part of the story. Comcast, a cable company, contributed nearly twice that ($19,000 versus $10,000).

As for Stevens, find his biggest contributors here. I’m seeing a lot of aerospace and engineering firms.

As reported by Jonathan Dube over at Cyberjournalist, your readers increasingly get news on the Web.

Are you giving it to them?

Dube’s referring to a Washingtonpost.com, et. al, study of online news consumption for 2004. The full study is here (note: not Safari friendly).

The biggest fact for me, and others of my inky ilk: Twice as many people get news daily online as read a newspaper. Newspapers, of course, trail television and radio as information outlets. The Web beats them all for daily consumption.

Kinda make you want to wash the ink off your hands, don’t it?